Royal row between King Charles and Earl Spencer 2

[Viviennemary]

Buckingham Palace have said they won't be commenting further on the book. But I expect plenty of others will be and it's not even published yet so I started this second thread. I really liked Diana and thought she got treated shabbily by Charles. But really writing a book of gripes 30 years later is not on imho. I noticed on the news Harry declined to comment on it. Sensible decision for once.

Dimbleby is saying that 'there was a huge feeling of relief at the palace after Diana died'

Do tell

Yes! Lindsey Duncan plays the loony, she’s brilliant. IIRC the story was a motorbike drove past and shined a laser in the driver’s eyes 🤪

You should - it’s very entertaining AND might give you some great ideas for future posts.

Does anyone know who or where the OP is?

Nah thanks

How silly do you have to be to think that spooks invented this idea. 😂

Surely we all read the witness account of the man who said that he saw a light being shined at the car just before it crashed.

Thats where Spooks got the idea for their epsiode

The Witness: A motorist named François Levistre testified at the 2007–2008 British inquest that he was driving in the Pont de l'Alma tunnel in Paris just before the crash.
The Claim: He stated he saw two men on a motorcycle overtake the Mercedes carrying Diana and Dodi Al Fayed. He claimed a major white flash of light came from the motorcycle and was directed into the Mercedes right before the vehicle crashed.

There may well have been, but individual personal feelings are quite different to whether the event itself was a net positive for the royal family! It self evidently was terrible for their popularity at the time, and embroiled them in all sorts of conspiracy theories and legal wrangles, some of which are clearly still current today.

💕 🥰

A laser would not be white. A camera flash would be though.

Ok , i wasn’t going to acknowledge this line of reasoning because I honestly thought it was satire or a joke…. But lasers are primarily red . A flash of white light sounds more like a camera flash ….however I don’t know why I’m bothering because if you really believe this sort of stuff then I assume that you simply will not accept any evidence of it not being true !🤷‍♀️

Or any other light could be white. A blinding light would make the driver crash.

This witness presumably saw multiple other journalists and cameras in the tunnel.

If he thought it was a camera flash, he would have said that

That’s a stretch. Where has anyone said the RF can do no wrong?

Well its an egotistical stance anyway for you to think that you have to convince me of something.

Try to let other people have their opinions. You have your opinion and I have mine. Then we have a discussion on the different opinions

I already answered this.

I'm going back in my memory of the RF and the impressions made on me at the time Diana was killed.

I don't live in the UK so I hadn't followed the RF on a regular basis, because the RF quite simply are not reported on as much here as they would have been in the UK.

Some of my memory might have been influenced by my mother who, although very fond of the QE2, and Charles, the Prince of Wales, felt, however that Diana had become somewhat of a loose cannon as the years went on.

I thought she was beautiful, lovely and shy, but I came to realize that Charles and Diana were not happy, you could see it in the photos.
When she died I was very shocked and sad for her family, and just the shear loss, and I followed every moment of the televised walk behind the Diana's cortège.
There was so much controversy between the public and the RF about how everything was handled, but I felt genuinely at the time that Prince Charles was shaken to the core, you could see it in his face and in his demeanor.
I can't imagine that the claims that have been made by CS are true.
I don't know a lot about CS, to be fair, but the things I have read about him over the many years doesn't paint him in the best light.

I seem to recall there was much talk from the public that the Queen had been slow to react, and I felt that she too must have been very shocked, but she did rise to the occasion, and was especially attentive and protective to her broken hearted grandsons, as you would expect any loving grandmother would be.

I am not biased towards CS or the former Prince of Wales. Of course I don't know them anymore than any other posters do, but I do think having a long time bias is a big part of who some would choose to believe, and why.
I'm just going by what I saw and felt about the Prince of Wales at that shocking and terrible time for his sons, and for a great many of the public.

This was dealt with in detail in the French enquiry and the Paget report. the upshot - the physical evidence contradicted M. Levistre’s claims (and his wife who was also in the car discounted it too). From the very detailed findings

François Levistre is the only eyewitness who speaks specifically of a ‘big white flash’ in the tunnel. It is questionable whether he could have seen the detail of what he claimed to have seen inside the underpass. He recounted a large amount of detail seen in his rearview mirror while driving through an underpass at speeds supposedly of around 120 -125km/h. He was also negotiating the slip-road in order to join the main carriageway from it, an action that would require his full attention, regardless of his speed. His wife,who was in the car with him, contradicted parts of his account. The French inquiry discounted François Levistre’s evidence.

The Principal Consultants at the Transport Research Laboratory carried out a technical reconstruction of the collision. They concluded that the driver of the Mercedes, Henri Paul, was between 60 and 105 metres from the beginning of the underpass when he started to perceive the hazard presented by another vehicle, such as the Fiat Uno, and thus saw the need to take avoiding action. Allowing for human reaction times, the driver began to respond to the hazard of an obstruction 30 to 60 metres before entering the underpass. In other words, the chain of events that led to the fatal ‘accident’ started some way from
the entrance to the underpass.

By the time the Mercedes approached the thirteenth pillar, the result was inevitable i.e. the Mercedes would collide with the pillar. The motion of the car inside the underpass was the result of the actions and reactions initiated by the driver outside the underpass. If there was a bright light inside the underpass near the Mercedes, and particularly near the thirteenth pillar, it did not cause the crash.

The physical evidence of tyre marks, vehicle debris patterns, points of collision from the scene and the marks identified on the Mercedes car supported this view. The view of the approach speed of the Mercedes was supported by the accounts of the witnesses who described the constant, relatively high speed of the Mercedes on its journey from place de la Concorde to the Alma underpass.

Thus, if François Levistre did see the collision near the thirteenth pillar of the underpass, this would in any event be the result of actions already underway outside the underpass.

And if those are both true, she went to the very people who should have put her first and they didn't. I know it's easy to think that she could just have had pre-wedding nerves but surely this meant that, at the very least, her family would have known she really needed more support.
We really don't know what happened behind closed doors but I always thought that the photoshoot/press call they did at Balmoral after the honeymoon did come across as two people very definitely attracted to each other and rather 'loved up'. I hope that she at least had some happy years in her marriage.
I do think though that she'd be on at least her third marriage by now if she'd survived and that there'd have been dramas galore in the meantime. Such a sad story, really.

You said a laser though?

You are aware that only you on this thread believes this ?
and it’s long since been consigned to the level of conspiracy theories such as ….faked moon landing….holocaust was a hoax …..elvis is alive and well and in hiding…..big foot …..flat earth……

and honestly if not believing these things makes me someone holding an egotistical stance…well I’m happy with that.

We really don't know what happened behind closed doors but I always thought that the photoshoot/press call they did at Balmoral after the honeymoon did come across as two people very definitely attracted to each other and rather 'loved up'. I hope that she at least had some happy years in her marriage.

There are plenty of photos from the first few years of their marriage showing a definite affection and chemistry there. I’ve also seen film footage of them giving an interview shortly after their marriage (a recent Netflix documentary that was just real footage from her life with no narrative voiceover) - they were flirting with each other as they answered the questions. It was quite eye opening, given everything we think we know about them.

Twiggy was employed by Charles after the separation to be a sort of nanny/ big sister figure fro the princes when they stayed with him. Diana objected, labelling her “a thumping great Sloane”. She believed the T and Charles were having an affair and went over to her at an event and whispered in her ear”Sorry to hear about your loss” , or similar, referring to her belief that T had had an abortion.

But she was also jealous of T’s closeness to her sons. She had form for this, rather brutally sacking their first nanny, Barbara Barnes, without allowing her so say goodbye to them, when she sensed just how fond they were of Barnes.

Well let's say "a light' if you'd prefer.

So a witness said that a large white light was directed into the car just before it crashed

Why would it bother me if I'm the only person on a thread who believes something. I don't go with the herd.

And we are on a predominantly pro - Royal forum, it's to be expected

Thumping great Sloane is kind of funny.

I Remember Diana made fun of herself for being a Sloane too